


Loophole

by tenlittlebullets



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Enjolras' inability to deal with his Grantaire feels, Friends With Benefits, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Repressed Gay Revolutionaries, Sharing a Bed, Sleep Sex, The unspeakable sin of the Greeks, Unresolved Sexual Tension, it was worth a try
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 00:38:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1408546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenlittlebullets/pseuds/tenlittlebullets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There’s nothing to be done about it, is there? Not when I can’t stand the thought of dividing my passion between our cause and… someone outside it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loophole

**Author's Note:**

> For a [Tumblr prompt](http://tenlittlebullets.tumblr.com/post/81560716725/enjolras-is-frustrated-by-his-pants-feelings-for): "Enjolras is frustrated by his pants feelings for Grantaire, but won't indulge them with someone who isn't helpful to the revolution. So he asks Combeferre to give him an education in the vice of the Greeks, to put his erection to 1) yay furthering education! and 2) finding an outlet for unwelcome sexual attraction."

"Go on, do it—"

"Enjolras."

"—see if you can follow through on something for once in your—"

“ _Enjolras_.”

Enjolras snapped awake to find himself hard, sweaty, and grinding into Combeferre’s leg. He sprang back, horror-struck, and would have rolled right off the narrow bed if Combeferre hadn’t grabbed him by the shoulder. God. Had Combeferre been _awake_ the whole time?

"There. You were dreaming, that’s all."

"I’m sorry," said Enjolras stiffly, looking at the ceiling to avoid Combeferre’s wide-open eyes shining at him in the dark.

"Oh, it’s all right. Perhaps there’s some truth after all in Grantaire’s jokes about the dreams of chaste men."

Enjolras ground his teeth, loudly enough to elicit a startled noise from Combeferre, and groaned, “Don’t talk to me about—” He ran a hand over his eyes and down his face, as though to wipe away the last vestiges of the dream, but his erection was forming a tent in the sheets, visible in obscene silhouette against the barely-lighter backdrop of the whitewashed wall. “Combeferre, do you ever have erotic dreams about someone you’d never think of touching in real life? Bizarre stuff, nonsense. A face you’ve never seen outside a cheap theatrical poster, the fat middle-aged housekeeper from when you were a child, the professor whose exam you’re about to fail. More disturbing than arousing once you wake up.”

Combeferre’s hand found Enjolras’ shoulder again and settled there. “Not since I was sixteen. It seems chastity is taking its toll on you.”

"So it seems, but there’s nothing to be done about it, is there? Not when I can’t stand the thought of dividing my passion between our cause and… someone outside it." Enjolras sighed. "I apologize. For my conduct while asleep."

"I won’t take it personally." Combeferre paused, and the hand on Enjolras’ shoulder fumbled through something resembling a caress. "Unless you want me to?"

"Combeferre…?"

"It’s only a thought, but… I’m not outside our cause, am I?"

Enjolras slid closer, turning to face him for the first time since he’d woken up and eyeing him speculatively. “A brave offer. Many men would be disgusted. Some would sleep on the floor, or in the gutter, or take their chances with the police prowling outside their own flat, rather than share a bed with the man willing to make it.”

"The Greeks did it," Combeferre remarked, and slipped his arm from Enjolras’ shoulder to his back, up under his nightshirt and along his spine. "So did the Romans."

Enjolras shivered and returned the embrace, pulling Combeferre’s body flush up against his own. “You’ve always been the broad-minded one, haven’t you,” he whispered in his friend’s ear, so close that his lips brushed the earlobe and made Combeferre gasp and start in his arms. “And so devoted to education. All right, let’s suppose that chastity might have a loophole. Teach me about the sin of the Greeks.”

Combeferre squirmed as Enjolras, evidently pleased with what he’d figured out so far, traced his tongue lightly up the shell of his ear. “You’re on track to not need any lessons at all,” he said drily into Enjolras’ neck. “But here.” And he spat into his hand and slipped it under the covers to take hold of Enjolras’ straining erection.

Enjolras gasped. He’d been grinding against Combeferre’s thigh just minutes before, but this—sudden, deliberate, undertaken in full consciousness of what they were doing—crossed a line into a place he’d hardly been aware might exist. Combeferre brusquely hiked up his own nightshirt and took Enjolras’ cock between his thighs, and Enjolras cried out and closed his eyes, not sure whether it was the ecstasy of being surrounded by heated flesh that drove him to do so or an uneasy sense that at this moment, in this act, it would be sacrilege for them to look each other in the face.

He rolled on top of Combeferre, groaning, and thrust blindly a few times before spending with shocking force. When he opened his eyes Combeferre was grinning at him, murmuring, “That was quick, shows you probably needed it,” and he pressed his face into Combeferre’s shoulder out of a shame that had nothing to do with his friend’s affectionate teasing.

"Technically," Combeferre said, "if this is the sin of the Greeks we’re exploring here, one of us should be the lover and one the beloved, but with your permission I think we can finish this in a more straightforwardly egalitarian manner…"

"Hm? Oh, of course," Enjolras said, and let Combeferre take his turn thrusting between his thighs, resting his chin on Combeferre’s shoulder and staring at the shadow of the window-frame on the wall. He’d been awake for a while now. It was unreasonable that his dream was still hovering over him. But this whole encounter, fleshy and sticky though it was, had had a touch of unreality to it from the start, and he half-expected to wake up again alone in his own bed. It would be a relief. Maybe then he wouldn’t be fighting off the bizarre sense that he was committing a betrayal.

Combeferre sighed and spent in his turn, and nestled sleepily against Enjolras’ chest. “Satisfactory education?”

"Enlightening," said Enjolras softly. "Though I don’t think this is a loophole we can exploit more than once." The word ‘exploit’ fell heavy on his tongue and he squeezed his eyes shut again so he wouldn’t have to see Combeferre dozing, friendly and trustful and honest, against his chest. For an experiment meant to keep from dividing his passions—between ideal and ardor, philia and eros—it only seemed to have exacerbated the divide. His lips formed a silent apology to Combeferre, and though he kept his eyes shut he stayed awake for a long time, cursing the looming phantom in their bed with every too-ardent fiber of his being.


End file.
